Lost Connection
by Ace Trainer Ritchie
Summary: It wasn't like Takato meant to create Guilmon. It just happened, but now he's wrapped up in saving the world and bringing humanity to these creatures never given humanity before.


First you take a drink. And then you think you're control. Because _you_ choose to take the drink. But no, it takes you. It takes you and those around you until everyone is infected and it's _your_ fault.

That drink? Nothing other than power. Mankind shouldn't have been allowed that power.

What power? Technicology. Creating it lead to a mess, and tampering with it lead to another mess. You thought you could control it, as you did once before.

But humans are humans, not technology. You should have the capability to beat it. And you didn't. You tampered with it far too much.

Go back. But you can't. So you've messed up. So hide it. Hide it away where no one can find it.

Godspeed, my friend.

-0-0-0-

Takato was in second period when his school had its first ever lock down.

"Now now, quiet down. Don't make me have to write you down for talking during this. This is serious business you know…" a sigh. Takato's teacher looked at the state of the classroom - with the boys and girls not even paying attention to her. They were too busy chatting away, minus one. But regardless, all of them were essentially chatting. So she sighed in defeat, knowing she'll never get a handle on this class. "Why do I even bother?" his teacher said, obviously done with everyone.

Takato felt her disappointment, and he sort of wished he could do something from his position. But he wasn't a leader, no not at all. Instead he was sitting by the window observing. He knew what everyone was doing - the boys were turning this into a competition. Who could identify the creature out there? (Takato placed his bets on Hirokazu, he was too good at Digimon not to win.) Meanwhile, the girls were laughing at them, because who seriously thought this situation was related to Digimon?

Regardless, no one took this seriously.

"It's gotta be Agumon," one said, pulling out a card of a very fierce Agumon card. The one that makes it look more like a monster than the mascot of anything.

Another one challenged him. "Still think it's Elecmon." He pushed the Agumon card back to its original holder. "It's red after all, not orange."

And for some reasons those words lingered. It's red. It's red. What was up with that color? Takato looked back at the window. The monster was red, very much so. Almost as red as his drawing, but darker. A deeper color of red, like Elecmon was. But the body structure didn't match up. Elecmon was a cuddly rat, this was a dinosaur. Like his drawing.

So, taking a deep breath, Takato took his drawing to where everyone was, placing it on the table for them to judge. "This… this is Guilmon, a Digimon I designed."

The girls started to laugh. Juri took out her puppet and made it bark at Takato. "Silly boy," it said in that higher pitched voice Juri always gave it. "First you think Digimon are real, then you go on creating it." All the other girls laughed, what Juri pointed out sounded like truth to them.

"Oi, Takato, what'cha thinking? You can't design a Digimon and then expect it to appear in real life," Hirokazu said, getting everyone else to laugh with him. The girls laughed much harder while all but two boys were laughing at Takato for thinking that he could create a Digimon.

Kenta picked up his drawing, and held it up to the window.

"Hey, move away from the window," the teacher said to no avail. Kenta motioned for Hirokazu to come to the window and soon there was a crowd by the window, itching to get a glance at the Digimon, now that Takato gave in his suggestion.

The point of the lockdown was to make it so everyone was made aware of the creature outside, and so no one went outside at all. A class that had PE discovered it, and the school was quickly made aware of the situation and got everyone inside, locked up. But no one ever said anything about the window. It wasn't like the Digimon could fly.

"Wait…" Hirokazu said, grabbing the drawing from Kenta. He pressed himself against the window, studying both the drawing and the Digimon outside. "Takato…"

"Yes?"

"Are you secretly a hacker?" Hirokazu said, completely serious. Takato frantically waved his hands as if to say no. "But the drawing and it match-up perfectly. It's almost like… _you_ created this Digimon." And with that, everyone turned around to face Takato, including the teacher.

"Should I report you to the school? A prank like this isn't funny, you know," she said, and all the girls snickered.

"Wait I can explain," but he really couldn't. He never did anything to get Guilmon into the real world, but that wouldn't convince his teacher. She didn't understand how Digimon worked, and Takato and everyone else only knew about the card game and the TV show. No one here knew how to make them a reality, or the fact that it was even possible. Today was just proving everything wrong. "This is… this is my favorite Digimon!" he yelled, blushing like hell. Everyone knew this was a lie, Guilmon didn't exist, but Takato hoped everyone agreed with him because he did not want to get in trouble for this.

"Yeah, Guilmon is an ultra rare Digimon! I don't even have it's card," Hirokazu said, joining in on the lie. Soon everyone started making up fake facts about Guilmon, like it's rarity, special attacks, what it did in the TV show… Takato was just glad they caught on, because she was clueless to this stuff.

"So why is it here?" she asked, and to that no one could answer.

-0-0-0-

Jenrya sat in his chair, nervously twitching continuously. The cause of it has well been identified, and he should know that he was safe. Because he was safe, but there was that error of uncertainty that lingered, and it made him twitch nonstop. Everyone probably stayed away from him for that reason, but it was fine. He was friendly with everyone in his class, but no one was his main friend. There was nothing to be lost by being left alone in this lockdown.

What was to be lost, however, could've very easily been Terriermon, who Jenrya was busy making sure it stayed in his book bag.

Hearing his teacher announce that class for today was put on halt until this monster was taken care of was what put him into twitch mode to start with. Jenrya knew it was a risk to bring Terriermon to school with him, but he had hoped that maybe, by being in school, it would learn something. Like how to act like a pet, or be a trusted companion like he saw on the tv show. But it didn't. It didn't do so at all. Terriermon could properly recite all of the lessons Jenrya had, but never got what they meant. All it did was repeat lessons verbatim, which Jenrya supposed was helpful in some situations, but not in all of them.

The loudspeaker crackled. Everyone immediately turned their heads to the corner of the room, probably wondering if the lockdown was over. If they could go back to learning, or if they could finally have the PE class that got held back for ages due to this lockdown. Everyone was just itching to do _something_ and this loudspeaker announcement could very easily provide a way to satisfy said itch.

The principal, who everyone instantly recognized by his infamous throat clearing before messages, began to speak. "An update to the situation. The monster has been identified as… Guu-il-mon?" The class began to chuckle. "From the popular TV show and card game, Digimon. If anyone knows how to deal with such a monster please speak up to your teacher and then report to my office. Until then the lockdown is to remain in effect."

Jenrya got up and walked over to the window. To be perfectly honest, he actually never got a good look at the creature, now confirmed to be a Digimon, because he was too busy worrying about Terriermon. But as he stared, he realized… who could identify that creature?

"Guilmon isn't a Digimon," someone said, pronouncing it exactly the same way the principal said, despite laughing at it earlier. "There's never been a Digimon named Guilmon."

"I know the names of every single Digimon out there, Guilmon is not in my memory."

"Or maybe it's just faulty."

"Can we just agree it's a Digimon so we can go to PE?"

Jenrya looked back to his desk, twitching a little with anger as he saw Terriermon poke out. It was observing the kids who were talking about this Guilmon (who Jenrya assumed was pronounced differently than how the principal said it) but was remaining stationary, thankfully.

He was more interested in what everyone had to say, but choose his desk to be the focal point to not draw so much attention to himself. They were all right, Guilmon wasn't a Digimon. At least, not one that he knew of. And he wasn't sure how it was identified so quickly. If it was any other Digimon, he was sure that it would've been recognized instantly, but this one had to be someone specific.

If Digimon were a computer program, did someone with incredible hacking skills…?

Jenrya walked back to his seat, grabbing his bag in the process. "Teacher, may I report to the principal's office?"

Everyone's heads suddenly turned to Jenrya, which he wasn't going for, but he guessed that's what happened when he decided to be the bold one and deal with the different Digimon.

Truth be told, he just wanted to get a look at it up close.

-0-0-0-

"Teacher, may I go to the principal's office? I think I have a plan," Takato said from his position at the window, after discussing it a bit with Hirokazu. He was, well, a chosen child. If he made the Digimon it surely had to listen to him, right? So if he talked to it, it would listen.

"Fine," she said, and everyone started cheering as Takato left the room. He blushed a bit, not used to such attention. He was a background character in comparison to people like Hirokazu, so getting a change of pace was welcomed, but welcomed with a bit of nervousness.

He quickly turned his head towards the opposite direction, just to make sure he was the only one in the hallway, and he soon found out he wasn't alone. A kid he never saw was having a conversation with his bag, and Takato just stared until he came into view.

"Well, love is, complicated. I'm sure what you heard wasn't -" and that's all Takato got to hear before the boy stopped.

"Ah, sorry," he apologized, "I like having conversations with myself."

Takato nodded. He understood that completely, given his living situations. Sometimes you just have only yourself to talk to.

"You have a solution to this problem?" Takato asked, and he motioned for the kid to follow him. "Because I was just thinking about talking to it."

"Talking to it?"

Takato nodded. _Wait, should I even tell him what we figured out?_

"Well that's better than my plan, I just honestly wanted to see it up close."

"Ah. Wait, I've never seen you before, what's your name? I'm Takato! Takato Mastuki."

"Jenrya. Jenrya Lee."

"Lee-kun? You aren't from around here then, right?" And Lee-kun shook his head.

"My dad's Chinese, but my mom's Japanese."

Takato let out a "huh," acknowledging it and tucking said information into his back pocket. It wasn't important, but he was curious.

"By the way, have you ever heard of a Digimon named Guilmon?" Lee-kun asked, and Takato immediately tensed up.

 _Now how do I deal with this?_ Laughing nervously, Takato responded, "Nope, never. Must be a newer Digimon that's being speculated about on the internet."

Lee-kun nodded, "That makes more sense," he said to Takato's relief. "But I didn't think anyone here was that into Digimon."

"Well, you never know!" Takato said, still laughing. But he immediately stopped when the door in front of them slammed open.

"What are you two doing outside your classrooms? You know you have to be inside for your safety."

It was the principal, and he didn't look happy. It was probably Takato's nervous laugh that tipped him off.

"We came here with a solution," Lee-kun said, immediately taking control of the situation. "According to the TV show, Digimon are sentient beings, they can talk and reason like human beings. Talking to them should do the trick."

Takato nodded in agreement. And he hoped the principal wouldn't pull "well this is real life" on them. But surprisingly the principal nodded.

"Anything to get it out of here, please."

So they went to the PE exit, chatting about what they thought they were going to talk about with Guilmon to get it to leave.

The only problem was that the moment they entered the grounds, Lee-kun's bag sprouted ears and started moving frantically.

"Lee-kun, what's going -" but before he could even finish that simple sentence, Takato had to immediately fall to the ground to avoid being scorched. A fireball came there way, and it came from none other than Guilmon.

Immediately afterwards, he heard the words "Jenrya, let me fight!" come from Lee-kun's bag, and it immediately opened up to reveal a Terriermon.

"You're… a tamer?" Takato asked, feeling ready to cry. Guilmon was his creation. His creation finally came to life.

Someone was going to erase his creation.

"Don't!" they both yelled at the same time, as Terriermon was in a stance to fight. Takato just didn't want to see Guilmon get hurt. He didn't know why Lee-kun yelled.

"Terriermon, you know you aren't allowed to fight!" Lee-kun yelled, just as Terriermon sent mini whirlwinds flying towards Guilmon. But Terriermon wasn't listening at all. Actually, both had a very determined look on their face, like they wanted to fight.

Takato picked himself off from the ground and immediately ran towards Guilmon. At the same exact time, Lee-kun grabbed onto Terriermon, stopping it from making more mini tornadoes.

"What are you doing?" Lee-kun asked, looking up at Takato who was now right in front of Guilmon, arms spread out wide, like he was going to single-handedly protect the Digimon that knocked him to the ground. Actually, it wasn't like he was going protect it, Takato was going to protect it, because that was his Digimon.

"Hm?" Guilmon said, nudging Takato on the back. It probably recognized by now this wasn't an enemy to fight. After all. Takato was pretty sure some of the qualities he listed for Guilmon was loyalty, like he had saw on TV.

"I made Guilmon. I'm not going to let anyone harm him!"

"You, made Guilmon?" Lee-kun asked, clutching Terriermon tighter. It was wiggling, trying to get out, and Takato could feel Guilmon doing something similar. It wasn't smart enough to go around Takato, but it was over his shoulder, now growling at Lee-kun's Digimon.

Takato nodded.

"Interesting," Lee-kun said while stuffing Terriermon into his bag, who was very unwilling to go into said bag. "Well, I'll leave you to deal with your creation. Hopefully we cross paths again, Takato." And with that, Lee-kun left and went back into the school building, leaving Takato alone with Guilmon, who was now calmed down since Terriermon left.

Returning to a normal standing position, Takato attempted to try what he was going to in the first place: talking to Guilmon. But his first question was more of a question of what what he could sahy to get Guilmon to listen to him. Which was hard. Takato essentially made Guilmon up to be the perfect Digimon - a mixture of cool and loyal, so it should listen to him if those properties are maintained. Yet at the same time, he never made Guilmon real, so whoever made him probably didn't keep those traits? Or just didn't feel like keeping those traits.

Oh, and he couldn't leave school grounds, so walking it to a hiding spot outside wasn't an option.

"I'm...I'm your Tamer!" Takato said, pointing at his face hoping that Guilmon would recognize it. In response, Guilmon simply made a sound that sounded like he wasn't sure about what Takato just said, but heard it anyway. Which, if that was true, made Takato glad but a little annoyed because that would mean it would take a lot to finally get Guilmon to do what he wanted. If only he had goggles to better convey what he meant, Guilmon probably associate Tamers with goggles, and well Takato wasn't wearing any. His forehead was barren, completely goggle-less. With a sigh, Takato repeated what he said, and this time said his name in it as well, hoping that would help.

"Ta-ka-to-mon?" Guilmon asked, and Takato sighed. He was almost right, god he was so close to being right. But Takato wasn't a Digimon, Guilmon was. There should be no -mon at the end of his name.

"No, Ta-ka-to," Takato said, repeating it exactly as Guilmon did, only excluding the mon part. He was going to have to work that out later if it kept going.

And it did! "Ta-ka-to...mon?" Guilmon said, this time hesitating to add the -mon ending but still doing so. Which earned him a sigh from Takato. He really didn't have time for this, he had no time for this at all. He had to get him out somehow, and soon or else they might finally realize to call animal control or something of that like, if they haven't already.

So Takato pushed it to the gate, and took a deep breath. He guessed that Guilmon didn't know the area well, so it wasn't like he could tell him where to go, even though Takato so badly wanted to so they could meet up again and figure out this Tamer situation.

"I need you to leave but stay somewhere nearby, okay? Please?" Takato asked, hoping that Guilmon was up to following orders. Instead he just got another confused noise followed up by another sentence, that was this time complete.

"Ta-ka-to-mon… leave me?" he asked and he turned his head sideways and giving those dog pouty eyes. If it wasn't for his dinosaur features, Takato would say he made a very good dog. "Play time! Play time!" he said afterwards, this time jumping up and down, flailing his arm like he was some kind of three year old child.

"Play time later!" Takato said, trying to push Guilmon to the gate, but he resisted. Guilmon was heavy, and add that to the added motion it was doing, well Takato couldn't imagine trying to actually move that. And well he attempted to, but his scrawny little arms were, well, scrawny little arms. He couldn't attempt to do much, and that was a problem due to the fact that he really had to get Guilmon out of the building so they resume classes and actually go home, because Takato was sure they were going to stay in lockdown mode for days if Guilmon never caught his drift. Which he really hope he did because god where they all out of options. Hirokazu called Takato's plan of talking to Guilmon dumb, but truth be told it was the _only_ plan they were able to come up with, and Lee-kun thought of something similar… besides, the only other option the school could go to made Takato shudder. Guilmon was his creation, he wasn't going to let anyone take it away from him.

"Play time play time!" Guilmon yelled, still flailing around and not listening to Takato at all. Takato sighed, and took one good look at Guilmon. It wanted to play and Takato wanted to grant that wish, but later. Right now just wasn't the time for it, sadly.

"I'll play with you under one condition," Takato said, hoping that would catch Guilmon's attention. And it did. He stopped flailing around, and actually stood still, tilted his head like a curious puppy, and made that sound once more that showed he was interested but confused. "You go hide yourself away somewhere near here, then I'll find you and I'll play with you." And surprisingly enough Guilmon nodded and happily cheered 'Takatomon's playing with me!' as it walked out of school grounds. Takato let out a sigh of relief as he saw Guilmon leave. Now the only problem was taming it.

 **Chapter 1 End: Lockdown**


End file.
